Lloyd Blankfein will step down as chief executive of Goldman Sachs in September after 12 years in which he steered the Wall Street institution through the financial crisis only to see it chastened in the aftermath.

As Mr Blankfein announced he would hand over to David Solomon, Goldman’s president and the heir apparent, the bank reported a 44 per cent increase in quarterly profits and claimed its strongest start to the year since 2009 — but its shares still fell more than 1 per cent.

“It’s always been hard for me to imagine leaving,” Mr Blankfein, 63, wrote in an internal memo. “When times are tougher, you can’t leave. And, when times are better, you don’t want to leave. Today, I don’t want to retire from Goldman Sachs but, by my own perhaps convoluted logic, it feels like the right time.”